New Platfora Release With Open Data Access And Flexible Workflow Options Makes Big Data Analytics Available For All

Delivers Instant Value Out of Data in Hadoop With Programmatic Access for Data Scientists; Enhanced Visualization and Discoverability for Line-of-Business Users

SAN MATEO, CA--(Marketwired - May 14, 2014) - Platfora today announced an update to its full-stack analytics platform with significant feature enhancements to tightly couple Big Data Analytics into core production workflows within the enterprise. Programmatic query access, bulk data export and key visualization enhancements help users across the enterprise, from data scientists to line-of-business professionals, work natively with data in Hadoop to achieve faster insights and get more value from the combination of their transaction, customer interaction and machine data.

"Platfora Big Data Analytics was designed to help organizations intelligently discover and analyze critical big data workloads that previously were impossible or impractical to uncover," said Ben Werther, founder and CEO of Platfora. "We allow a broad variety of roles inside the organization to interactively work with multi-structured data, helping them create new opportunities and solve once unsolvable problems, often within days of installation."Open Access and Flexible Workflow Options for Data ProfessionalsIn this latest release, Platfora's programmatic query access provides data scientists a way to leverage existing programming skills, such as SQL, to get simplified fast access to big data that has been wrangled, transformed, joined and aggregated in Platfora lenses. With this new capability, data scientists can make data in Platfora lenses available for statistical analysis in R or for integration into other downstream processes such as recommendation engines. Additionally, any data professional or business analyst now has open access through Platfora to export data in bulk by downloading a CSV file directly to the desktop or writing data back to HDFS for similar production workflow use cases.

"With Platfora, we can shave weeks off the time to reach first discoveries on new data sets and at the same time expand the types of data we include in analysis," said Andrew Robbins, CEO and founder of Paytronix, a customer insight services and loyalty program provider to restaurants. "Not only has Platfora simplified our Hadoop workflow, but the big data analytics platform will also make it easier to integrate social media, mobile, online and in-store data to reinvent what loyalty marketing means to restaurateurs and their guests."

Refined User Experience for Enhanced DiscoverabilityPlatfora Vizboards are comprehensive canvases for interactive visual Big Data Analytics. The company has enhanced the user experience to put visual discoverability at the fingertips of line-of-business users. New contextual menus, interactive charts and cross-tabs, along with a fresh visual design provide flexibility and consistency to help business analysts derive insights faster. This refreshed design makes it intuitive to create, share and collaborate with simple drag-and-drop gestures.

Native Big Data Analytics PlatformContinuing Platfora's commitment to the Apache Hadoop open source ecosystem, the company is also announcing broad support for the latest Hadoop distributions from our partners including Cloudera, Hortonworks, MapR, Pivotal and Amazon Web Services. Platfora constantly strives to future-proof customers' investments in Hadoop by proactively qualifying the latest commercial distributions. In this release, Platfora has qualified Cloudera CDH5 and MapR 3.0 with additional support for Hortonworks HDP 2.1 coming in June.

Platfora is also a supporter of the fast-emerging Apache Spark framework which helps organizations further speed data processing on Hadoop clusters -- running up to 100x faster in memory, and 10x faster when running on disk.

Platfora Big Data Analytics for AllToday the decision makers who need access to Big Data Analytics occupy a broad range of roles. Recognizing this growth, Platfora brings analytics to many different kinds of users throughout the organization including Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs), Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and Chief Product Officers (CPOs). With Platfora, users can visualize insights and make fact-based decisions that were never before practical or possible -- at the speed of business.

Pricing & AvailabilityThe latest Platfora release will be available on May 16, 2014, through the company's direct sales representatives. Platfora Big Data Analytics is server software that runs on-premises or in the cloud utilizing standard general-purpose hardware. Subscription licenses are priced on a per-server, per-year basis. For more information, please contact the Platfora sales team at www.platfora.com.

About PlatforaPlatfora is the #1 native Big Data Analytics platform for Hadoop. Platfora puts big data directly into the hands of line-of-business people through self-service analytics that help them uncover new opportunities that were once impossible or impractical across transaction, customer interaction and machine data. An interactive and visual full-stack platform delivered as subscription software in the cloud or on-premises, Platfora Big Data Analytics is creating data-driven competitive advantages in the areas of security, marketing, finance, operations and the Internet of Things. Leading organizations such as Citi, Comcast, DirecTV, Disney, Edmunds.com, Opower, Riot Games, Vivint and The Washington Post use Platfora. www.platfora.com